Today I FINALLY got a 2009 calendar up on the fridge. Up until this point I’ve had to remember everything in my head which is just asking for trouble! Perhaps you are also like me and have yet to get a calendar. Maybe you’re just holding out until the calendars go on sale, like I had considered doing. Or maybe this year your grandmother didn’t end up sending you one of the many free calendars that she got in the mail. Whatever the reason, it’s never to late to put up a unique and fun calendar.

I found a printable calendar including a tutorial on how to make it at knick knacks & ric rac. The calendar covers half a sheet of paper so it’s not very large. It’s a good size for me because we don’t have a very hectic schedule but if you keep a lot on your calendar then you’ll need to print some calendars about the size of a whole piece of paper.

While I like the idea of using pictures, I decided to do use drawings made by Emma instead. There’s just something genius about children’s artwork. If you have young children, grandchildren or if you know any children, get them to draw a picture for you. Children seem to generate a LOT of artwork and this will give you a way to use some of it. You can have the child draw one picture to use all year-round or have them draw a new picture each month. Emma has a set of oil pastels that she is allowed to use to make “extra-special” pictures. The combination of lighter pastels and black paper gives a nice chalkboard look.

Because the Christmas season was so short this year we decided to make our tree into a Valentine tree. When I was a kid my mom did this with our Christmas tree and I loved it! Once married I tried this with our live Christmas tree and was in for quite a surprise! I was sitting on the floor one night working on a craft project when I noticed there was a LOT of dirt under the tree! Only…

...it wasn’t DIRT!

...it was millions of teeny tiny BUGS!

Unbeknownst to us there was evidently a nest of bug eggs that had hatched. This probably happened because we had the tree in the warm indoors so long. It was SO disgusting getting that tree out of the house. The whole way out the door bugs were dropping EVERYwhere! Needless to say we no longer buy live trees because of that incident! :)

Getting your baby into a healthy sleeping pattern is important not only for your sanity and rest but for the health of your baby as well. Studies have shown a strong correlation between the quality & quantity of sleep that children get and their ability to learn and adapt. In his book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” Doctor Marc Weissbluth gives us guidelines in helping our children to get the right kind of sleep. It is well known that poor sleep makes children irritable but he goes further and shows how it can actually lead to labels like ADD and hyperactivity. He explains that while children may have hereditary blocks to sleeping well, parents can have a huge impact in helping our children sleep properly. He first gives us a picture of what healthy sleep and healthy awake time looks like and then gives guidelines for establishing healthy sleep at each stage of a child’s development from infancy to adolescence. While he focuses on prevention of sleep problems, he also gives an age-appropriate action plan for correcting them. For families with two careers, multiples or other obstacles to establishing good sleeping routines he gives practical tips to help.

This book is full of helpful information. With that being said, I will say that not all of his recommendations work. According to his book my daughter should have been sleeping through the night at 9 months old. It wasn’t until she was 13 months old though before that became a reality. Until this happened my daughter would wake up a couple times a night and was obviously very hungry. She definitely has a fast metabolism and I think that contributed to it. She would go to sleep right after eating even if she wasn’t asleep when I laid her down. My recommendation is to take the info in the book and combine it with your parental instincts to create the best situation for your child.

While he does mention SIDS, he doesn’t explain what causes it. I would recommend reading my earlier article on that, ”SIDS Prevention.”

This month I started taking Emma to the home-school roller skating event. It’s been such a blast from the past! When I was home-schooled years ago we used to go roller skating quite regularly. It was one of my favorite home-school outings. Emma was so tipsy at first but started getting pretty stable by the time the two hours were up. We had a lot of fun and it was great exercise! It was especially nice to spend some one on one time with Emma. Since Katie has been born it’s been harder to do things together so it was good to connect.

"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.”
~Mother Teresa